


In The Dry Land

by SilverDagger



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Supernatural Elements, Zombie!Nux, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 11:51:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4745306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverDagger/pseuds/SilverDagger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The desert gives, and the desert takes away. And sometimes, the desert gives something back.</p><p>(Nux <i>un</i>lives. This is probably ridiculous.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Dry Land

He walks out of the waste with dried blood and sand crusted on his skin, just a small, pale shape, easily visible against the flat horizon. His left arm hangs useless by his side, and he walks with a limping, staggering gait. He shouldn't be walking at all.

"He's dead," Toast says, at her place in the lookout tower. "That isn't him. He's dead."

She lifts her rifle and takes aim, but Capable pushes the barrel down before she can fire, then ducks past her to lean out the window, staring down at the small shape making his way across the desert.

"It's been two weeks," Toast says. "That's _not_ him."

"Might not have been, for him," Capable says. Strange things happen in the high desert. Time doesn't work like it should. She's heard of war parties that go off course, only to end up at their destination two days later for them, two months for everyone else. Didn't think it was true, locked in the vault with Miss Giddy and her stories of a more fixed and rational time. The world should have rules, and they should make sense, and they shouldn't change. But out there, Furiosa says, the rules are different. Veer too far off the known roads, you might never find your way back - or you might, unexpectedly, long after everyone else has stopped waiting.

It's a weak excuse for hope. He doesn't look like anything living, and that happens too, out there in the wastes. The dead come back to life.

"Let me talk to him," Capable says. Toast looks at her like she's just proposed taking a running dive off the battlements.

"Fine. Don't blame me when he bites your face off."

"He won't."

"He will. That's what dead men _do_."

Capable doesn't have anything to say to that, because she knows as well as anyone else what men do, dead or living. But as she runs for the lifts, she can see Toast leveling the rifle again, and she knows that if she misjudged the situation - if she misjudged Nux - she'll be covered as well as anyone can be.

It's a long way down, inside the claustrophobic pulley-drawn elevator, and it feels longer than it is. She spends the whole rattling ride trying not to think about what will happen if she's wrong, and then the lift hits the ground with a jarring thump, and she pushes the doors open and steps out onto open ground, nothing between her and a dead man but distance.

A deep breath, a second when she almost steps back and signals them to pull her up again, and she makes her decision. Sand shifts under her feet as she runs toward him, and the heat is an assault out here at midday, with no shadows to hide in. Not a minute outside and she's already thirsty. She doesn't want to know what it's been like for Nux, how he made it this far on his own, or whether the dead will suffer without water or sustenance. She doesn't want to think about what sustenance she's heard the dead require. And up close, she can see that his injuries are worse than she'd realized from the watchtower - not only small scrapes but a long ragged cut down his side, crushed ribs and a gouge in his wounded arm deep enough to see muscle and bone. 

Nux stops a few meters away, swaying on his feet, and looks at her with unfocused gaze, pupils dilated wide enough to make his eyes seem nearly black. She clamps down on fear and pity both, refuses to flinch. She's not the one who's hurt, and he's not the one in danger.

"Valhalla didn't want me," he says in a rasping whisper. And then he's pitching forward and she runs to catch him before he hits the ground. She finds him lighter than she expected, sun-seared, his ribs showing beneath thin skin. White clay cracks and flakes off in her hands, and she realizes with horror that his skin is cracking too, burnt and bleeding.

His eyes fix on her face, and he says her name - softly, like a blessing, and it's only then that she's certain Toast is wrong. 

She helps him up, mindful of his injuries, and helps him step by slow step back to the lift, trying to think through what she's going to do with him now that he hasn't tried to harm her. Her mind keeps circling around to the same answer, but it's not one she likes. She's not going to let them put him in a cage, and an ordinary room is out of the question until they know he's safe. That leaves the one place in the Citadel that's both comfortable and secure, and the thought of going back _there_ leaves her tense and wired and slightly sick. But she would have had to face it eventually, if only to stop the place from crouching in the back of her thoughts like a spider in a darkened corner. Might as well be today, when she'll get some use out of it.

She isn't sure they'll let her up again, with Nux leaning heavy one her arm, but only a second after she gives the signal, she feels the lift start to move. Toast meets them at the top, flanked by two armed War Boys and wearing a stony look that Capable recognizes well, one she picked up from Furiosa and now makes use of every time she has to watch someone do something both dangerous and futile. Capable can hardly blame her. She knows she's being foolish, bringing Nux inside the walls unchained. But she was foolish the first time too, in sparing his life and letting him stay hidden, and Furiosa herself was a fool to steal them all out from under Joe's nose to begin with. Without risky acts of mercy, they wouldn't be here.

Still, risky doesn't have to mean stupid. She's glad to have someone armed at her back, and where she's going, she's glad to have the company. She's no less grateful for the water-heavy canteen that Toast hooks onto her belt without a word as they walk, but before she can say as much, Toast steps back and resumes her guard, hand hovering near the pistol at her hip. 

One more turn, down the hall and into the heart of the agricultural chambers, and the vault door comes in sight. Capable hasn't been back since the escape, and just walking through the rows of hanging crops toward the place is enough for a chill to settle over her, even with Nux stumbling along beside her. It's never bothered her before, touching him, but by the time she leads him to the nearest bed and he collapses onto it, she's very glad to have his weight off her.

Nux falls back against the pillows with a sound that isn't pain but might be weariness, an ugly rattle of breath through a ruined windpipe. Capable holds the canteen out to him, and he takes it with unsteady hands and drinks, just enough to wet his parched throat. She doesn't know if it does him any good, but it must be better than nothing.

She asks once, before she can stop herself, "how are you alive?"

He looks at her with hollow eyes, and when he speaks, he sounds desolate. "I don't have anywhere to go but here."

She doesn't ask again. She has no doubt that if she did, he would tell the truth.

_How are you still alive?_

_I'm not._

"Stay put," she says, and gives his hand a reassuring squeeze, trying not to wince at the blood on his skin. "I have to find you a medic. I'll be back."

She tries to keep her pace measured on the way out - she isn't fleeing, not from him and not from _this place_ \- but her breath is tight in her lungs and it's a guilty relief to have Toast at her side, armed and looking for an excuse. 

The vault door shuts behind them with a resounding clang. Capable falls against the wall, and when Toast rests a comforting hand on her arm, she doesn't shrug it off. She hadn't felt afraid back there, talking to Nux, but now she's shaking, cold sweat between her shoulderblades, like she's just stepped out of danger. Maybe it's just this part of the Citadel, the effect of setting foot in her old prison for the first time since she left it. Maybe it has nothing to do with Toast's words in the tower, or all the campfire stories her own clan used to tell about the walking dead.

Maybe it doesn't actually matter what it is, as long as it's keeping her from doing what needs to be done. She scowls at the floor, then picks herself up and heads to the infirmary, resolutely not looking back.

Furiosa falls into stride beside her on the way up. She walks briskly, and doesn't waste any time before saying, "Toast told me what you brought through our doors."

"It's Nux," Capable says. Furiosa gives her a long look, almost sad but mostly just unreadable.

"I know you care about that boy," she says, "so you ought to know. The instant it looks like he's a danger, I'm putting him down for good."

"I understand," Capable says.

"And you'll let me?"

Capable doubts she has a chance of stopping her. Still, she owes Furiosa the truth. 

"That depends on if I agree with you."

Furiosa grunts in acknowledgment, maybe even a little respect, and walks a few more paces beside her before splitting off at the next turning with a brief sign of farewell.

It's a relief, at first, to be alone, but when Capable reaches her destination, she can't help but wish she wasn't. The infirmary is - well, the infirmary is better than it used to be. It's cleaner, though she doesn't know if the stench of old sweat and blood can ever be scrubbed from these rooms, and the cages are gone, even if the chains that hung them still dangle from the ceiling. But the memory of them leaves her trapped and angry, and she wants to be out of this place as soon as she can.

The first medic she finds is bent over a stainless steel counter with a mortar and pestle, working by kerosene light to grind some dried herb she doesn't recognize, but he leaps to his feet with a sharp V8 salute as soon as he looks up to see her standing in the tunnel's mouth. She recognizes him as a War Boy named Rust, one of Organic's lesser assistants and one of the best the Citadel has to offer now that all the old guard are gone. She barely has a chance to mention an injured War Boy before he grabs a bag from its place on a high shelf and sends her to draw up a basin of heated water while he gathers his supplies, his voice carrying the strangest mix of brusque and respectful she's ever heard. She's a god given flesh, in the eyes of half the War Boys left living, and it's not proving easy to convince them differently. But it's useful, no matter how she feels about it otherwise, and she intends to keep using it for as long as it lasts.

That the other half see her as traitor and usurper, she's less keen to contemplate, but for all the raids and posturing from Gas Town and the Bullet Farm it hasn't come to open war yet. Furiosa says they have room enough for the once-Wretched, and food and bullets enough to withstand a siege if everyone's willing to get a little thinner, though it's the water that will break any assault against them. She says it, but Capable is smart enough to know how precarious their safety is, and she wonders suddenly how much of Furiosa's willingness to take in Nux was motivated by the promise of one more weapon at her disposal.

Then Rust is back, with burn salves and bandages, and there's no more time to waste in speculation. Capable carries the basin of water sloshing at her hip as she leads the way back, and she fills Rust in on the situation as she goes.

"It happens sometimes," he says. "Best thing to do is send 'em on through the Gates before they take anyone else with 'em, but if he's yours..."

"He's mine," she says. He doesn't argue, but he also doesn't talk again until they reach the vault, and Capable suspects he thinks her unwise.

Perhaps she is. But when she sees Nux again, he greets her with the shadow of a smile, and when she sits down beside him and takes his thin, cold hand in hers, he does nothing more than lean into her touch the way he had before, like he's craving warmth or kindness.

That's little enough proof, of course, that he's safe. His eyes dart around the room, and she isn't sure whether she only imagines that his gaze keeps returning to the medic's throat. He hasn't hurt her, but Rust is a stranger, and not one he has any reason to care for or to trust. But he lets Rust wash the clay and blood from his skin, barely flinching from the warm water, hardly moving at all. Beneath the paint, he's too pale to be natural, his face gaunt and his eyes still ringed by bruised-looking circles. A monster, some would say. To her, he just looks sick and weary.

Rust works briskly, stitching up the wound in Nux's side and all the other smaller ones, and never lets the fear she knows he's feeling show. Nux allows it without speaking, gives no sign of pain or even comprehension. He seems to be beyond thought, or anything else besides enduring until the trial is over, but his grip on her hand is tight and she can see him biting his lip, dark blood welling up where his teeth have broken the skin.

"Nothin' I've seen before," Rust mutters to himself, as he splints and bandages Nux's arm. "Shouldn't even be breathing, hurt like that, but - Core temperature low, heartbeat slow but present. Can't find any signs of rot. I'd say you're one lucky traitor bastard, if ending up a ghoul counts as lucky."

And then it's over. Rust steps back - a shade too quickly, but only just a shade - and she stays where she is, and Nux sags back against the pillows like even consciousness tires him. He takes more water but refuses food, turning away offers of broth and greens and even mother's milk, until Capable says, "the others, they'll worry if you don't eat."

"I can't," he says, and something passes across his face - a flicker of shame, the first thing she's seen from him that isn't fatigue. "Those things, plants, milk, it's not - I can't."

Capable suppresses a shiver, reminds herself that this is _Nux_ and he's given her no reason not to trust him, and asks another question she already knows the answer to. 

"Would meat be better?"

He bites his lip again, and she thinks he's not going to answer, but after a moment of hesitation he mutters, "uncooked."

"Of course," she says. "We'll find you something."

Rust pulls her aside outside the door, a hand on her arm that she shakes off automatically, even though she knows he means no disrespect.

"There'd be more help for him, y'know, if the Imperator hadn't made us set the bloodbags loose. I think it would do him good." He taps his chin with a scarred finger, and his expression brightens. "I could catch him one of the Wretched, if you like. Plenty of those to go around."

Capable stares, unprepared for the reminder of what War Boy pragmatism looks like. Furiosa's put a stop to a lot of things, and it's easy to forget what they used to do to captives to keep themselves alive.

"Absolutely not," she manages, then frowns, looking back at the vault door. "He doesn't need...?"

"Nobody knows what ghouls need," Rust says. "Might be nothing. But I'll tell you, I fought his kind before. They're always hungry."

"Can you stop calling him that?"

Rust shrugs. "'s what he is."

"We don't know what he is yet," Capable says. 

Rust looks like he means to argue, but all he says is, "call me if he gets worse, and keep a weapon on you." He takes one of the knives from his belt and presses it into her hand, and though she's never really been easy with weapons, the jagged scrap metal shape of the blade is a comfort and a favor she can't turn away.

"Thank you," she says.

"Go for the eyes," he says in return, and heads for the lifts without another word, leaving her with the task of turning up sustenance for someone who might or might not be a ghoul, and almost certainly needs it.

*

In the end, she brings Nux a lizard. It takes some doing to catch it, even with living things of all species flocking to the self-contained ecosystem of the Citadel and the nourishment it offers, and she still doesn't like killing things but at least she kills this one quickly, one clean stab through the skull. She doesn't ask Rust or Toast or anyone else to deal with it for her, though she knows they would. She wants to know what Nux will do.

He's out of bed when she returns to the vault, sitting by the dry depression in the floor that used to be a pool, as if even the memory of water fascinates him. But his head whips around as the door swings open, teeth bared, before he seems to force himself to stillness.

He stands unsteadily when she holds the dead lizard out to him, almost falling before he regains his balance, then lunges in her direction with terrifying speed. He grabs the carcass out of her hands and tears into its belly in a single motion, not seeming to notice as she stumbles out of his reach and backs rapidly away. She stops when her back hits the wall and watches him from the door, refusing to look away and trying not to let it bother her. She doesn't know why it would. People eat whatever they can catch outside the Citadel, and they don't always waste the fuel to cook it. She's tasted raw lizard herself, back before Joe's people stole her, and maybe it's only that she really has gone soft in her imprisonment. But there's something almost animal about the way Nux sits hunched over his meal, more feral than any feral she can imagine, and it makes her feel all too much like prey.

When he's done, he looks up with blank eyes and blood on his mouth, and for a second she isn't sure he recognizes her. 

"Nux," she says, and he seems to shake himself and sit a little straighter, focusing again on her face as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"I scared you," he says.

"A little," she says.

He shakes his head, contrite. "Wouldn't hurt you. Not you."

"What about people who aren't me?"

He blinks slowly, pauses to lick lizard blood from his fingers, then says, "not them either, long as they're your friends."

She supposes it's the best she can ask for. Might be the best anyone can ask for, in a world like this.

"Everyone here is my friend," she says, and he makes a sound that might be a laugh or a cough.

"They're not. But I won't hurt them less you ask it."

She wonders what he'd do if she _did_ ask it, and her pulse quickens, not quite fear, not even entirely unpleasant. An image flashes through her mind of old Joe with his throat torn out, and no, that definitely isn't fear sitting heavy in the pit of her stomach. She would have liked to do that herself, once, or worse. She doesn't think even Angharad, rest her spirit, would have disapproved.

"Self-defense," she says, "or defense of others. No killing but that." She speaks sharply, without doubt or hesitation, but despite that, she knows she isn't just talking to him.

*

Capable spends the first half of that night reading through every book and scribbled account she could find in Miss Giddy's storehouse of information, no matter that most of it is sure to be false. Ghouls, Rust had called them. Zombies, some call them, or revenants, and her clan never named them anything but the dead, but whatever they're called, the stories she finds are much the same as the ones her own folk told - mindless, insensate, walking husks that had once been people, nothing left of them but hunger. That's not him. Not the boy who died for their sake or the one who walked out of the desert because he had nowhere else to go, and she slams the book shut and tosses it aside, angry at her own ignorance and everything else. She stands without conscious thought, only wordless, foolish impulse, and before she can stop herself, she's on her way back to the vault.

Someone's set a guard - probably Furiosa - but the two War Boys wave her past without question, and it's not difficult to ignore them readying their lances as she cracks open the door and slips inside.

Nux is in bed and to all appearances peaceful, though she knows how deceptive appearances can be. He's lying back with his eyes closed, but he doesn't look asleep, and he lifts his head to squint at her from across the room as she steps closer, his mouth tightening into a thin, scarred line.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"I didn't want to be alone," she says. "I didn't think you did either."

"I don't," he says. "But - "

"It's alright," she says. "Is it safe for me to come closer?"

A nod, abrupt and serious. He doesn't seem offended by the question, or eager the way a man or a monster might be, given easy prey, only shifts aside to make room as she climbs into bed beside him. He wraps his good arm around her shoulder, and she rests her head on his bandaged chest, running one hand over the raised lines of his scars and listening to the painfully slow beat of his heart. She doesn't know how true any of those books were, and she doesn't know what he is, but she knows what he isn't, and that's all that matters now.

"I remember you," he says, stroking her hair gently enough to send a shiver down her spine. "Capable. Always Capable. So chrome."

"Shh," she says, and presses a kiss to the hollow of his throat, not letting herself be troubled by the strange, dry coolness of his skin. He goes still, except for the slightest trembling of his hand in her hair, and she feels him shift beneath her to look up at the same ceiling she used to stare at in the dark of night, terrified and angry and lonely. She wonders if he's frightened now, and realizes with surprise that she isn't. Not of this place, and not of anything in it.

"I remember you," he says again, more quietly. "I don't remember - much of anything else."

"Maybe you will," she says. She doesn't know if she believes it, or if he does, but the words or her voice seem to drain some of the tension from his body. His hand stills in her hair, and when she looks up at his face, his eyes are closed, whether he required sleep any longer or not.

She can feel herself growing weary too, and Nux, gaunt and gangly and dangerous though he is, isn't uncomfortable beside her. She doesn't mean to sleep, but sleep steals over her all the same, deep and dreamless, and if she wakes again before morning, she doesn't remember it.

She opens her eyes to the sight of sunlight pouring through the glass dome and throwing rainbows across the floor, and she realizes that she spent the whole night in the vault, with no bad dreams and no memories to shake her out of sleep. She's somehow shifted so that her head is resting in the crook of his neck and one of her legs is hooked around his knee, careless and comfortable. She used to sleep like that with the other wives, back when wives was what they were, sinking into the closest thing to safety any of them could have or offer. Never could imagine feeling that kind of safe with a living man, and now here she is, and if she were smart then she'd be running, but she doesn't even want to move.

She doesn't know if Nux slept at all, but he's awake now, judging by the uneven rhythm he's tapping out against the small of her back with the fingers of his good hand. She doesn't think he even realizes he's doing it, but when she moves slightly, he stops, and she shivers against her will. Without that motion, he's stiller than any living person should be.

"You're still here," he says, in that dry whisper of his, and he sounds young enough, uncertain enough, to chase away any last remnant of fear.

"So are you," she says.

"Didn't want to wake you." A frown, looking almost natural now. "You should get up now, though. You must have things to do. Capable things. You'll be gone again."

"I do," she says, "and I will. But I'll be back soon. Until then, everything in here is yours."

She isn't sure what he'll do with it all - books, musical instruments, pieces of art. He might like those things, or learn to, but she reminds herself to ask one of the Mothers to turn the water back on for as long as Nux is in here, and perhaps send up some tools and something to work on. And food, of course, and someone to check his wounds, but she's not sure yet that he's safe with anyone but her, so of course she'll be back again long before her day's duties are over.

After that, it's mostly quiet, and Nux mostly rests, though Dag and Cheedo and even Toast come by to welcome their lost boy back, and Furiosa herself comes in once to look him over. She paces around him, then grips his chin with the metal fingers of her rebuilt prosthetic, tilts his head up and turns it this way and that, looking for something Capable isn't sure how to recognize. At last, she steps back, nodding like she's satisfied, and the atmosphere in the room seems to lighten by just a fraction.

"Maybe you're not wrong after all," she says to Capable, and then to Nux, with new respect, "anybody tried to do that to _me_ , I'd have torn their throat out with my teeth."

Nux blinks at her, nonplussed, then draws himself up to his full height, looks her in the eye, and says, "is that permission?"

Capable winces, but Furiosa laughs, jerks her head in Capable's direction, and says, "ask her."

"You already know my answer," Capable says. She's expecting him to agree without argument, and he does. She isn't expecting him to salute, head bowed and hands raised in the sign of the V8, or as close to it as he can get with one arm that barely functions. But he does, and for an instant while he does it, the expression on his face speaks less of friendship than awe and loyalty.

After Furiosa is gone, Capable asks, "do you remember her?"

Nux tilts his head, blinking slow and reptilian, and says, "a traitor." She's worried for a second, until he grins and adds, "just like the rest of us."

*

The arm doesn't heal. His skin does, gradually, and his injuries close and scar, leaving white raised lines across his sallow skin. He grows steadier on his feet, and goes from constantly tired to tireless as he recovers, but there are things he never does quite remember. 

As soon as he's out of the vault he's in the workshop, sauntering in like he's never left it, and for the first time he looks exactly like the boy she remembers from the War Rig in what already feels like a different life. He chases the Repair Boys out - though they're quick enough to leave on their own, faced with a ghoul and a god both wanting the place to themselves - and takes over where they left off. He inspects the car the boys were working on with a keen eye, running his hand over the chassis with more care than she's ever seen him show to a person who wasn't her and looking completely at ease with himself for the first time that she's ever seen, even when he was living.

"Ain't she lovely, though?" he murmurs, maybe to himself and maybe to her, maybe to the car. "Gonna fix this one up nice and shine."

At first she's content to watch him work, soaking in all the information she can about a skill so long denied to her, and at first he just asks for her help with minor things made difficult by only one hand to work with - hold this, hand me that - caught up so completely in his repairs that he doesn't even seem to register that he's been talking or telling her what to do. But when they reach a stopping point, he turns to her like he's only just seen her there, and says, "you know how to replace a worn out crankshaft?"

She shakes her head. He grins, scars stretching skeletal across his face, and motions her over. 

"You want to?"

She does. She wants to learn everything, and as it turns out, he wants to teach her. Not just engines, though he says she's got a talent for learning them. He takes her out driving, when the day is clear enough to see any danger coming on, and shows her how to throw a lance and shoot a gun, and before she settles down to sleep beside him at night - in a small chamber in the Citadel's upper level, no longer the vault, though Furiosa doesn't dismiss the guards - he tells her about the brothers he had once and all the ways they died. He seems to be teaching her everything he values, warlike or peaceful, and as much as she wants to know it, she can't help but wonder at his urgency.

But she doesn't wonder for very long. The truth is clear in the way he moves, abrupt and oddly predatory even now, the restless energy that animates him whenever he doesn't have something to fix or take apart. And sure enough, one day he steps back from the car they've's been fixing up, a sturdy coupe that he says is a lot like the old one she never got a chance to see, and he turns to her and says he's got thoughts of leaving.

"I want to see what's out there," he says. "Can't die, can I? So I might as well make myself useful."

"You can die," she says. "Again, I mean. Furiosa says you can kill anything with a headshot. It's still dangerous out there, no matter what you are now."

He shifts on his feet, scratches the back of his bald head. "Wouldn't ask you to come with me."

"You better not ask me to stay behind."

"When this is done," he says, and pats the hood of the coupe like it's an old friend. "That's when I - when we'll go." 

His face lights up with a sparking grin, sudden eagerness. "I could teach you to do war."

"Maybe," she says, feeling her stomach lurch, and he looks concerned, then abashed.

"Said the wrong thing, didn't I?"

"I don't want war," she says. "None of us do. And Angharad... She didn't approve of killing when it wasn't necessary."

 _Not even when it was,_ she thinks.

He nods, like he understands "This is the Green Place now. Not the place for War Boys and dead men, yeah? Out there, it's still the wastes."

 _Someplace he still belongs,_ she thinks.

"You're welcome here," she says quickly, and then, understanding more of what he means, "if you change your mind, we can always come back."

"If you ever want to," he says, and that's when she understands that he doesn't want to, and she can't even blame him. She can remember the wheel in her hands and the wind in her face, the urge to blast past the edge of safe territory and just keep on going forever, and when she thinks about it, she wouldn't mind leaving either, just to see where she ends up.

"If I ever do," she agrees, and threads her fingers through his, stretches up to kiss the corner of his mouth. His skin is cool and scarred, his eyes dark and hollow, and his good hand tightens in her grip as he goes still and then relaxes beneath her touch. _Always hungry,_ Rust had said, but she isn't sure that's true, and even if it is -

Funny to think that it doesn't bother her at all.

*

They leave on a cool day, as the wastelands go, with a light breeze and a brilliant sunrise painting the sky with color. The coupe is packed with water for both of them and food for her, a few good guns and plenty of ammo and, more precious still, the things for books and maps. Nux says he means to survive on what he can catch or nothing at all. She's not so certain he doesn't mean raiders, and not at all certain what she thinks of that, but she's got his promise still - self-defense - and no doubt that he means to keep it. And their mission is to seek out water and seeds and peaceful settlements, and whether they find any or not, to return with as close to a functional map as the shifting sands and roads of the waste will allow them. The thought of that - of doing something useful, something _good_ \- sparks in her chest like ignition and leaves her yearning for the open road.

Furiosa and the other women see them off at the Citadel's gates, the Dag and Cheedo watching with hands linked and Toast beside them with every single one of her guns on display, and even Rust makes it down from his infirmary to watch them go. 

"Don't you dare stay gone for good," Toast says to both of them, and then to Nux, "if you come back without her, I'll skin you." Capable isn't sure whether she means it or not, but Toast and Nux clasp hands like brother and sister, and whatever she means, Capable thinks understand each other - and even like each other - well enough.

When they set out, Capable doesn't look back, beyond the briefest glance at rearview mirror, but she doesn't have to look back to know that she'll always have a home there, and she's not the only one. She's driving, this time, and Nux sits beside her, his face tilted up into the rising wind. And the desert stretches before them - seemingly endless, though everything has an end, and lifeless, though she knows how small and stubborn and hidden life can be. And dangerous, always, but she's not afraid.


End file.
